


I Want to Wake Up to Your Face

by nicholas_de_vilance



Series: Shattering [5]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Recovery, Torture, hinted at one-sided attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicholas_de_vilance/pseuds/nicholas_de_vilance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel wakes up a few times to various faces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want to Wake Up to Your Face

**Author's Note:**

> I actually just put an ending on this even though I started it over two years ago. I'm getting back into the hang of this verse.

At first, all he could see was light.  There was some pain, but mostly the light was warm.  It was amber-colored and seeped into his deepest part like a salve.  He couldn’t remember why he hurt so much, why every inch of him throbbed and ached.  A thousand little needles were pricking the inside of his skull, as if they were trying to force themselves out.  His chest felt like it was collapsing, or like it was stuffed full of cotton to the point where his lungs couldn’t expand.  Pain emanated from his toes and his legs and arms.  But the light…It burned its way within him, wiping the interior walls of his head with a numbing balm and stitching together the damage.  He could almost feel every tissue in his brain being put back in its proper place.  The ache started to die down, like someone turned the volume down on white noise in his ears.

            The next time he opened his eyes, the light had moved.  He could feel it, burning, warming, soothing into his chest.  He tried to breathe, but now he could feel the tube in his throat, doing it for him.  All of the cotton was starting to melt away, slicking up the gears in his chest.  His heart beat pounded suddenly, freely.  He could hear it, feel it in the abrupt sharpness of pain in various places on his body, but it was better.  This was a vital pain.  He could find comfort in this pain.

            He tried to open his eyes again, but the lids stuck together.  Now, the light was gone and there was commotion all around him.  He heard voices, as if from a distance.

            “Vala?  Vala!?”  A pause and then, “I need some help in here!”

            He turned, trying to see past the glaze on his eyes.  “Vala?” he tried to say, but choked.  There was a face above him now, but he knew it wasn’t Vala.  Somehow he could tell that the dark hair and pale skin wasn’t hers.

            “Doctor Jackson?” said a voice—not Vala’s, “Daniel, can you hear me?”

            He swallowed at tightness in his trachea.  “Vala?” he tried again, sloppily dragging his hand up in an attempt to pull away whatever was inhibiting his speech.

            “Doctor Jackson?  Stay with me.”  The voice was low, but undoubtedly female.  Dr. Lam then, he thought.  “Daniel?  Daniel!”  He wasn’t really sure why she was yelling at him, he could hear her just fine.  It was just…he was so tired—and Vala was here, so he couldn’t really be bothered to wake up.  “I think he’s alright,” Lam said to someone else.

            Daniel didn’t wait to find out whom.  He let himself go; maybe he could finally get some sleep.

 

When Daniel woke up, and he really did wake up this time, he was almost disappointed that he didn’t see Dr. Lam yelling in his face anymore.  The room around him was quiet and dark.  Only the beep and whir of the machinery around him broke the silence.  His head was so heavy that he couldn’t lift it from the pillow; so he satisfied himself to look around through the darkness.  He didn’t have to look long.  In a chair by the door, he could see the unmistakable form of Colonel Cameron Mitchell seated, sleeping.  Daniel tried to draw in a breath to speak, but he couldn’t.  He became hyperaware of the tube that had probably been doing his breathing for him still lodged in his throat.  The sensation made him cough, tightening his trachea around the damn thing, which made him cough again.  And again….and again.

            His eyes quickly began to water, and he couldn’t stop himself coughing.  Bring a hand up to his face, he tried to figure out how to remove it so he could breathe right again.

            “Woah,” came a voice from above him.  He must have woken up Cameron.  “Hey there, Jackson, nurse is on her way.”

 

“Where’s Vala?”  It was the first thing he asked once the tube was removed.  He had started to remember things, awful things.  There were people around him, poking him with sharp things, hitting his legs with something that looked like a baseball bat.  They did something to his head, and then his hands.  Everything was blurry after that.  The only thing that really stood out was Vala’s face in the darkness. She was crying.  “Where is she?”

            Cam took a seat at Daniel’s bedside.  There was a frown on his face that seemed a bit like disappointment, but Daniel ignored it.  “She’s fine,” he said, “just resting in another room.”

            “Resting from what?  What happened?”

            Sighing, Cameron rested his chin on his hand propped up on his knee.  “She’s fine,” he insisted.  “I don’t know how much you remember, but you were hurt off-world and she had to break out the old Goa’uld healing doohickey to wake your ass up.  She’s just a little tired from unscrambling your brain.”

            “Oh…”  Daniel fell quiet, trying to let that answer satisfy him.  He knew he’d been hurt and it must have been bad, but what about her?  She had been crying—like _real_ crying.  “Can I see her?”

 

            “She’s asleep,” Cameron said.  “Besides, Dr. Lam seems to think you need to stay put.  Something about your knee.”

            The memory was abrupt and bombarding.  Daniel could see it clearly, almost like it was happening again.  He was chained up to the ceiling by his neck and those men…beating his legs over and over again.  With a wince, he closed his eyes.  He tried to think about something else, anything else.  Nothing came to mind, nothing other than the pain and the fear.  His head was starting to pound in time with his heartbeat.  He tried to take deep breaths to calm himself, but his throat was dry.

            “Water?” he asked, eyes still clenched shut.

            “Yup…”  There was a moment where the incessant beeping and whirring of the machines was drowned out by Cameron’s movement, but it wasn’t long.  A plastic straw was pressed against his lower lip as the other man said, “You had us all pretty worried for a while there.”

            Daniel took three short sips and turned his head away.  Icy cold water burned his throat, but numbed the scratchiness.  He gave it a minute before he tried to open his eyes again.  “How long…?”

            “A week and a half,” said Cam thoughtfully, “well, that was after you came back from PJ6…whatever.  Anyway, I’m not sure how much Dr. Lam wants you to know just now, at least until your better, but you were unresponsive when Vala brought you back and then…Daniel?”

 

The next time he woke up, Daniel was a bit shocked to feel the weight and presence of someone in bed with him.  Someone was in his hospital bed, that is…with him.  He didn’t go on the alert because she smelled familiar, like vanilla and body odor, but definitely familiar.  She even felt familiar.  Slowly, carefully, he opened up his eyes and tried to swallow with his ever-dry throat.  White hot ropes of pain were pulsing in his legs and his hands were a numb sort of sore.  He hadn’t noticed the pain before.  Maybe he’d just been on really good drugs, and now he was catching them on the downside.  Doing his best not to voice his pain, turned his head, blinking the crusty sleepiness away and focusing on Vala, pressed against his side, curled around him so that she fit onto the small section of his bed that was open to her.  She was asleep.

            The lingering image of her tear-stained face down in that dark hell was still plaguing him.  When he looked at her, however, there was something to soothe that trauma with.  Vala looked serene and beautiful.  She looked like a soldier finally able to rest easy after the worst part of the war.  The way she clung to him, thin fingers gripped somewhat tensely into his shirt, she looked like she needed him.

            Stiffly, Daniel leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head.  Cameron had said a week and a half and Daniel was pretty sure he could count on his fingers how many hours Vala had slept in that time.  At most, he’d have to throw in a couple toes.  Once the pain really started to get the better of him, he’d call in a nurse, but for now he just wanted to let her sleep.  They were different now; he felt a definite shift in the air between them.  He’d get a better picture of it once she was awake and talking to him, maybe be able to classify it.  Until then, he lifted one bruised, healing hand and rested it on her shoulder.  The moment he touched her, a visible relief washed over her.  He could see her relax, even though he would never have guessed that she needed to.  It was like she couldn’t even sleep without worrying until she finally had confirmation that he was okay.

            “I’m okay,” he told her softly, smile ghosting over his dry lips.


End file.
